


'Cause All I Wanted To Do (Was Sit Beside You)

by blanchtt



Series: Crooked But Upright [2]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 13:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10968102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: It’s a weight off her shoulders to straggle back to the safe-house and find it crowded – Sarah looking her usual belligerent self, Mrs. S offering a welcoming smile, Felix too busy fluttering protectively around Kira, now plus a bedraggled Delphine, a shaky Cosima, and herself.





	'Cause All I Wanted To Do (Was Sit Beside You)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a request for five Bright Are The Stars That Shine AU headcanons. Send me an AU and I'll write 5+ headcanons for it!

 

 

 

They split in two, the chances of five people escaping at once probably very low. In the weeks it takes to get back to Toronto, there’s radio silence from Sarah, which is for the best as much as it is nerve-wracking. So it’s a weight off of her shoulders to straggle back to the safe-house and find it crowded – Sarah looking her usual belligerent self, Mrs. S offering a welcoming smile, Felix too busy fluttering protectively around Kira, now plus a bedraggled Delphine, a shaky Cosima, and herself.

 

Shay drops her things on the floor of the hallway, lets Sarah and her family crowd around Cosima and Delphine – because she’s too tired to help Cosima right now, and she’s not going to kid herself, either; _family_ is who they were out to help in the first place – and heads to her room.

 

She sleeps for ten hours straight, which she hasn’t done in about three weeks, and wakes up groggy and disoriented.

 

She turns over slowly in bed, blinking sleep from her eyes, and the wisps of steam are what catch her attention. She sits up, finds that there’s a cup of tea resting on a coaster on her bedside table, and reaches over, takes it in her hands and is surprised to find it’s piping hot, the tea – in a loose-leaf infuser just how she likes it, not bagged – just beginning to steep.

 

 

-

 

 

Shay supposes her job is done. She _should_ pack up, go home, and clear her head. Will remembering this make her a stronger person, or is it best to forget it? 

 

But either way, she’s still on a hair-trigger that’s not going to be easy to come down from, and it's not helped by Mrs. S eyeing her silently as she walks out the door, placates her with a white lie about a walk.

 

She does't _know_ what she going to do. But it’s cold out and so she does opt for a walk after all to keep warm, and wanders around downtown with only the barest looks over her shoulder every now and then. She comes to a decision finally, the fresh air doing her good, something she’s able to admit only now that it’s not an excuse for a lieutenant to make them run ten miles.

                                                                                                                                    

She heads back to the safe-house, doesn’t seem to have to say anything because Mrs. S glances at her, remarks, “You’re late for dinner, chicken,” and disappears back into the kitchen with an expectant look that tells Shay she’s going to sit down with the rest of them and eat.

 

 

-

 

 

They are here still at the same safe-house, which Shay has no doubt Mrs. S knows how to keep safe, because healing takes time and patience and stability. And it’s not that she’s been avoiding anyone – just that they’ve all gotten back not one full week ago, and Cosima’s been busy with her therapies along with Delphine, as her doctor constantly by her side.

 

And so she’s surprised to find Cosima lounging on the couch one morning in what passes as the living room, bundled up in a few too many sweaters – she’s too pale and skinny for Shay’s liking – but looking surprisingly hale as she reads a book out loud to Kira.

 

Cosima breaks off midsentence to look up as Shay enters the living room, and she's actually intent on just passing through. But she stops as Cosima tilts her chin, as Kira waves at her shyly.

 

“Hey.”

 

Shay would like to say they always got each other. And they did, on quite a few levels – the stuff that she knew of, at least. But right now Cosima seems caught between two emotions, a cautious smile playing at her lips, because they both know now that there are no more secrets.

 

(That means there were secrets, before. Things she was left out of).

 

(But what’s a relationship without some mystery, right?)

 

Shay smiles back, takes a seat on the couch opposite Cosima, crosses her legs, and nods at the book. “What are you reading?”

 

“Almost done with Charlotte’s Web,” Cosima says, and Shay thinks that that’s a fine choice. But then Cosima tilts the book towards her, asks, “Want to help?"

 

And now Cosima’s grinning, cheek to cheek, happy-to-be-alive smiling that Shay has never seen before, and Shay can’t help but smile, too, as she reaches out, as Cosima hands over the book, and as she feels Kira shift closer to her, eager for _someone_  to keep reading.

 

                                                                                                      

-

 

 

There’s no shame in admitting she’s a grunt. There’s already a hierarchy here, one Shay is not looking to become the head of, and she wouldn’t have joined the armed forces if she wasn’t comfortable being told what to do anyway.

 

So she shadows Sarah as she slinks around downtown, runs shady errands for Mrs. S, and simply spends time with Cosima because, unsurprisingly, Cosima’s never short on people willing to help her out. Cosima has everything she needs already, and the science part of whatever she and Delphine are cooking up is over her head.

 

“It’s just nice to talk,” Cosima says, as Shay sits and watches her manipulate something on the bright screen she’s working off, and Shay gets that.

 

(They had talked in bed later at night more often than not, Cosima too tired to do anything else and Shay assuring her that that was just fine by her).

 

There is a day, though, that she walks straight into the make-shift lab like she always does, feels a flicker of something come and go when she sees that Cosima is not there but Delphine is.

 

It’s hard to comprehend that this woman, this person that looks at her with big, uncertain doe-eyes, is the same person as before, the one that held up a razor to her threateningly in her own home or the one on the island who looked ready to lay down and accept her fate.

 

The realization comes to her wordlessly, a rush of understanding that perhaps Delphine is more scared of her than she is of Delphine, even now, and it makes it easy to offer.

 

“I was going to go get some coffee,” Shay says, still lingering in the doorway. She gives Delphine an out, asking, “Do you want anything?”

 

If it’s a yes, she’ll bring Delphine something and leave. If it’s a no, she’ll just leave. But the offer – reassurance that they’ve buried the hatchet back on the island – has Delphine’s worried frown lose a degree or two of severity, and Shay watches in surprise as Delphine bites her bottom lip before speaking.

 

“Do you mind if I join you?”

 

 

-

 

 

She can see why Cosima fell for Delphien despite knowing everything, and can see why Cosima and Delphine get along so well together. Even without common career goals, it is somehow easy to fall into friendship with Delphine, to run into her in the hall and offer a hello, to wash dishes together after dinner side by side, to sit in the lab and talk to her and Cosima.

                                                                   

(She’s always tried to stay friends with her exes. It’s only the second time it’s worked, and the first time she’s become friends with her ex’s current girlfriend).

 

And it’s washing dishes, together in that small space, too close, that Delphine slips by her, still laughing and regaling her with a story of a cat and an unaccounted-for cup of coffee, and feels a hand low on the small of her back, light yet steadying, _don’t-step-back-I’m-right-behind-you._

And there she goes again. She’s a fool for offering up her heart so easily - always has been. She tries to chalk it up to romanticism, although it may just be stupidity. With a single touch, Shay finds herself rooted to the spot, sopping wet dish frozen in her hands, because she’s always been a _terrible_ liar.

 

But Delphine places the glass back in the cupboard, turns around, asks, “ _Un p’tit café?”_ like she always does, and Shay smiles, shakes her head, and the spell is broken.

 

“Just tea,” she replies, just like every time, and Delphine makes a noise as if to say without words that she doesn’t understand how she can possibly say no to coffee.

 

(What _she_ doesn’t understand is how Delphine can drink black coffee before going to bed.

 

“It’s a French thing,” Cosima had told her with an equally confused shrug).

 

Shay finishes up the few dishes left, wipes down the counter that they’ve gotten wet, and by the time she sits down, Delphine’s got tea and coffee ready, two mugs on the table.

 

Shay pulls up a seat, picks out the infuser and leaves it on the plate that’s under the mug, neat and clean. And the similarities strike her as she takes her first sip, Delphine sitting across quietly from her drinking her coffee.

 

She puts down her mug, doesn’t ask as much as confirms, “You left me that tea. When we first got back.”

 

It takes a moment, but Delphine puts down her own mug, nods, and replies, “Yes.” And Shay smiles, sees a mirror of it, both proud and nervous, as Delphine adds with a tiny laugh, “Although Cosima helped me with choosing the flavor.”

 

Of course. Shay breathes out, a happy warmth at the thought of Cosima and Delphine thinking about her, and wonders if that’s what Sarah feels whenever she comes back home, when she overhears Kira call her mother’s name, Felix hollering for her to help with the drinks. She reaches out, fingertips brushing Delphine’s own, and Delphine doesn’t move away.

 

“It was perfect,” Shay says, the reassurance maybe not so unnecessary as she had first suspected. She's not quite sure what’s there below the surface, behind Delphine's eyes that meet hers shyly and her fingers which hesitate before threading through Shay's own.

 

But she’d like to find out.  

 

 

 


End file.
